1.
On my days off, my body still wakes
at the same workaday time.
Where I’d normally hit the snooze
to capture fifteen minutes, 
instead the whole day stretches blank
before me, gives me thinking hours.

2.
To my nephew a bug is a poem,

each writhing leg itself a stanza
encased in its glittering habitat– waiting
behind translucent plastic walls.
To a preteen, what is time?

Who am I to prove him wrong?

So what if few else understand
when the music plays from the terrarium 
right in front of him–this world he made?
It’s all right there. 

3.
Myself, I move in poems and inches–
the leaves on the oak outside grow and die
on its branches so quick I barely notice them.
I think of the boy one human year ago,
in a different coat, and smaller.
Blink and he’ll be too big to climb.